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Challenging the social construction of gendered clothing

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Challenging the social construction of gendered clothing

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Here, I have my six year old brother named Adrian. The jersey my brother Adrian is wearing holds such significant importance because he is wearing the first pink home jersey in Men League soccer history and is wearing it so proudly demonstrating how the social construction of gender continues to shift in different contexts today. Judith Lorber speaks on how gender has been so socially constructed that many believe it is a part of one’s genes. For example, when a child is born and assigned a sex the parents' parenting displays gendered expectations by dressing and treating the child based on their gender status. However, she also states how gender is constantly being redefined through human interactions. Famous role models such as Lionel Messi that many children look up to in soccer are challenging the maintenance of gender roles by wearing colors such as pink that have often been linked to being feminine. Since Messi is a world wide role model for children many like my brother Adrian are beginning to reconstruct the color pink as not only feminine but masculine as well meaning it has become more of a unisex color. It is evident that many young males like Adrian are beginning to take pride in wearing the color pink and demonstrates how the social construction of clothing shifts in society depending on how “everyone does gender.”

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Growing up I never understood how machismo deeply impacted Latino households until my aunt recounted the stories of my grandpa. My grandpa was a stern man who made my grandma do all the household chores while also looking after all the children. My grandpa was also verbally abusive to my grandma as well as to his children. He was never emotionally involved with his children yet maintained his dominance by only speaking to them when disciplining. This form of male dominance in the home later impacted how my father treated women he was romantically involved with such as it did to Byron Hurt in the reading, “ Feminist Men”. For instance, he cheated on my mom and multiple women which I believe was his way of feeling dominant as his father had taught him. However, my aunt saw the detrimental effects this had on our family and therefore,  began to demonstrate practices of feminism in her household. Byron hurt spoke about how feminists did not hate men as they were often stereotyped to be. Byron claimed that feminists wanted to inform about the truths of what women experienced and how feminism was a way of giving women a voice and challenging traditional masculinity. Though my aunt was not apart of an organization or wrote about patriarchy she embraced feminism in her own home. In the image provided above, is one of the ways my aunt and her husband have advocated for feminism. This kind of interaction in a home depicts how men could also aid in cooking that is often seen as a women's chore. This practice of feminism is teaching future generations of our family to challenge traditional masculinity and to create a positive open-minded household.

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In this image you see a young girl who looks happy to be in a long blue dress, black heels, and perfectly curled hair. This young girl is me, Emely Alfaro, who dressed this way before attending my cousins wedding. Though I was encountered with positive remarks and approval I was completely uncomfortable in this dress. The dress was too tight and it felt too revealing but this what is expected from a girl when attending a wedding right? In the reading " Gendered Bodies" it discusses how in western society women have to look and act a certain way according to the event they are attending. Which is why I chose to wear a dress I was completely uncomfortable in. I rather have had the appearance of my body meet social expectations that made me look skinnier and more revealing. As Gendered Bodies states, we can see how my perception of social expectations have influenced the clothing I wear even if it is not what defines my actual fashion or identity.

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In this image above we have my aunt in whom is working in her office for the county of Marin. Just by seeing the position of my aunt you could see that there has been significant change in gendered roles where young women like my aunt Elizabeth are given the opportunities to work in higher positions. My aunt derived from human society's predictable divisions of labor and instead had the ambition to attend college and build her career as a paralegal. This image always demonstrates to me that women are as capable of working efficiently in an office as a man.

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I have seen how the beliefs of my step fathers religion has impacted his parenting to my younger brothers. His religious beliefs completely disregard any sexual identity other than heterosexuality. Though religion has many good impacts on my brother I do feel that my fathers strong emphasis on being heterosexual sort of imposes this idea of masculinity on my brothers. He often demonstrates disapproval when my siblings want to wear pink clothing or express any act that may appear as feminine. My step dad is constraining the possibilities of gender diversity to my brothers causing them to become narrow minded about diverse gender identities.